This chapter considers Mia Couto's narratives. Couto's status questions the politics of representation in a postcolonial society which emerged from five hundred years of imperial and colonial ...
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This chapter considers Mia Couto's narratives. Couto's status questions the politics of representation in a postcolonial society which emerged from five hundred years of imperial and colonial occupation into a state of civil war. This chapter addresses Couto's fragile subject status through the prism of the canonical insights of Homi Bhabha. It signalises Ascolino's fearful failure to exploit the stratagems of subversive mimicry which are so important a part of Bhabha's analysis of colonial subjectivity. It discusses ‘De como se vazou a vida de Ascolino do Perpétuo Socorro’ and ‘O último aviso do corvo falador’.Less

Colonial Crosswords: (In)voicing the Gap in Mia Couto

Maria Manuel Lisboa

Published in print: 2000-11-01

This chapter considers Mia Couto's narratives. Couto's status questions the politics of representation in a postcolonial society which emerged from five hundred years of imperial and colonial occupation into a state of civil war. This chapter addresses Couto's fragile subject status through the prism of the canonical insights of Homi Bhabha. It signalises Ascolino's fearful failure to exploit the stratagems of subversive mimicry which are so important a part of Bhabha's analysis of colonial subjectivity. It discusses ‘De como se vazou a vida de Ascolino do Perpétuo Socorro’ and ‘O último aviso do corvo falador’.